University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative
Exchange
University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects
University of Tennessee Honors Program
12-2014
Do both misery and happiness love company? The
emotional consequences of listening to experiences
shared by others.
Samantha Warchol
University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_chanhonoproj
Part of the Community Psychology Commons, and the Social Psychology Commons
Recommended Citation
Warchol, Samantha, "Do both misery and happiness love company? The emotional consequences of listening to experiences shared by
others." (2014). University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects.
http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_chanhonoproj/1797
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Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
Do misery and happiness both love company? The emotional consequences of
listening to experiences shared by others.
Samantha Warchol
The University of Tennessee- Knoxville
1
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
2
Abstract
Sharing personal experiences and events is an important component of developing
personal relationships and connecting with others. Two adages present contradictory thoughts on
how “friends” will respond to personal accomplishments or difficulties. The first claims, “When
times get rough, you will find out who your real friends are”; the other claims, “Misery loves
company”. This study focuses on how sharing information affects individual mood in order to
understand how sharing a personal experience may affect relationships and listeners. Previous
research has focused on how the speaker potentially benefits from sharing personal experiences
with others. Instead, this study attempts to understand how the listener is affected emotionally by
having an event shared with them; do people typically enjoy hearing about others’ happiness or
do people relish in the misery of others? The “Personal Experiences Survey” functions as a
preliminary measure that asks participants to first act as a “speaker” in sharing their own
personal experience and then asks them to be a “listener” and read another individual’s personal
experience. Participants’ moods are measured both after acting as the “speaker” and as the
“listener” in order to detect overall mood changes. The participants with the greatest increase in
positive mood were those who shared their own positive experience and then read a positive
experience; participants also preferred listening to events congruent to their present mood.
Overall, this study shows that individuals focus on their own experiences, minimizing the
experiences of others unless they, as a listener, benefit.
Keywords: disclosure, personal experience, capitalization, sharing events, congruent
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
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Introduction
Sharing personal experiences and events is an important component of developing
personal relationships and connecting with others. Two adages present contradictory thoughts on
how “friends” will respond to personal accomplishments or difficulties. The first claims, “When
times get rough, you will find out who your real friends are”; the other claims, “Misery loves
company”. These contradictory situations pose the question of when to share information with
others and how a listener is affected by an event told to them. Do people typically enjoy hearing
about others’ happiness, or do people relish in the misery of others? Although this study cannot
fully answer this question, it acts as a preliminary measure that examines how people are
emotionally affected by the experiences of others.
The effects of disclosing or sharing personal events has been widely studied in the area of
Social Psychology, particularly in the context of traumatic experiences, such as Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD) in veterans. Although this research examines the effects of information
sharing, it was not significantly used in the development of this particular study, because first, it
focuses on the sharing of extreme news and experiences, and secondly, this area of study
examines the effects on the speaker, such as the veteran, instead of the effects on the family
member or friend who is listening to the experience being shared. More recent research focuses
on the sharing of less extreme events, including what type of information is the most likely to be
shared and the potential benefits of sharing for both the speaker and listener.
Researchers like Heath (1996) have examined what type of news people prefer to share
based on personal relevance, the source of the news and the conditions of the environment.
Studies such as this have been a foundation for understanding how and why information is
shared. In his series of studies, Heath asked participants to select which “facts” or events they
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
4
would be most likely to share. These surveys contained a variety of positive, negative, extreme
and mild “facts” or events from reliable sources. After his series of surveys, Heath developed the
congruence hypothesis, which first states that individuals are the most likely to share information
that is personally relevant to them. Secondly, it suggests that individuals are likely to share
information that is congruent with the overall mood or environment. For example, in an already
negative environment people responded that they were much more likely to share bad news;
however, when the environment was positive, participants were more likely to share something
positive. Finally, Heath affirmed that moderate news was the most likely to be shared, since
people viewed it as more reliable. This final portion of his analysis is particularly relevant to this
study because it focuses on the sharing of moderate news, which occurs the most often. Heath’s
congruence hypothesis was used as a foundation for developing my hypotheses and survey.
Studies have also been conducted on the sharing of positive events and how speakers
attempt to capitalize on their happiness from an event by receiving a positive reaction from a
listener (Gable, Reis, Impett & Asher, 2004). Related studies asked participants to write about an
event from their day, whether or not they shared this event with someone close to them and the
reaction they received from the person with whom they shared their event (Gable, Gonzaga &
Strachman, 2006). Gable’s studies analyzed how different types of reactions, such as positive or
negative and constructive or passive, influenced how the listener benefited emotionally from the
event and how the relationship between listener and speaker may have been affected. In 2013,
Dr. Hackenbracht and Dr. Gasper attempted to further understand the motives of a listener,
through the belongingness hypothesis. This hypothesis argues that a listener benefits from a
speaker’s emotional disclosure through an increase in the positive relationship between the two
individuals, provoking an increased sense of belonging on the part of the listener. Similar to Dr.
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
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Hackenbracht and Gasper’s research, the focus of this paper is on the effects of the listener, who
is receiving either a positive or negative personal experience from an unknown individual. In the
“Personal Experiences Survey”, the need to belong and the benefits of sharing for the speaker are
not primary variables, since participants are reading responses written by an unknown individual.
The only information that participants are given is that the “speaker” is another student at their
university. There was no manipulation of exclusion on the part of the listener; however, the
belongingness hypothesis provides a framework for how participants may be emotionally
affected by both sharing and then listening to negative experiences in particular.
This study utilizes previous research on how listeners benefit from disclosure and the
sharing of personal events. The “Personal Experiences Survey” is a preliminary examination of
how individuals will be emotionally affected by the everyday personal experiences of an
unknown individual. The importance of personal experiences are defined in the survey. Positive
personal experiences were explained to be:
“Personal experiences often provoke an increase of mood, a stronger sense of being
connected to others, increased self-worth and achievement for an individual. These
experiences can be more generally defined by experiences that are not related to work or
education and that provoke positive feelings. Personal experiences may be smaller
experiences that happen in a day or month...”
Negative personal experiences were described in the same manner except in that they provoke
negative feelings, including a weakened sense of being connected to other and potentially
decreased self-worth. Based on previous research, I first hypothesize that participants will be
positively affected as a listener when they have shared a positive personal event, regardless of
whether or not they read a positive event. Secondly, I predict there will be a noticeable increase
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
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in negative affect when participants share a negative personal event and are asked to read the
negative experience of an unknown individual. Unlike the belongingness hypothesis,
(Hackenbracht & Gable, 2013) participants have little to no motivation to respond positively to a
positive event that they did not share in, likely provoking an increase in negative affect. My final
hypothesis is that Heath’s congruence hypothesis will be reinforced; participants will likely be
the most responsive and affected in the conditions where the personal event they share (as the
speaker) and the event they read about (as the listener) are of the same positive or negative
valence. Participants also filled out the PANAS survey, which measures overall positive and
negative affect using a mixed list of words describing their present mood. These PANAS results
were the primary data source used to test the hypotheses in order to understand when to share
information and how listeners are emotionally affected.
Methods
Participants
There were a total of 1003 participants who completed the survey; some responses were
omitted from analysis based on incomplete data, yielding a total of 970 responses used for final
analysis. Condition One contains 241 responses for share positive/read positive, Condition Two
contains 246 responses for share positive/read negative, Condition Three contains 240 responses
for share negative/read positive, and finally Condition Four contains 243 responses for share
negative/read negative. Table One in the Appendix shows the experimental design. The majority
of participants were ages 18-23 years, freshman at the university; approximately 68% of the
participants were females. All responses were anonymous; participants were assigned a separate
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
7
ID code in order to ensure that they received course credit. Due to these factors, I will focus on
overall Within-Subjects changes in mood by comparing mood scores for all four conditions.
In order to participate in the survey, participants had to be age 18 or older, and all
participants were currently enrolled at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Participants
received credit for introductory Psychology courses or extra credit for upper-level Psychology
courses upon completion of the survey. Additionally, they were asked to complete an Informed
Consent form and were told that they could withdraw from the study at any point without any
penalty.
General Procedures
This study is based on the results of “The Personal Experience Survey”, which consists of
two primary stages, yielding a total of four conditions. In stage one, the participant acts as the
“speaker” by submitting a personal event, which is not included in the analysis for this paper. In
stage two, participants act as the “listener” by reading an event. The events from both stages are
classified as either a personal positive event or a negative one. In order to create the necessary
conditions, participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups in each stage. Of the four
conditions, there were two that were classified as “shared” or “congruent” conditions in which
the participant had either a positive/positive combination or negative/negative combination
through random assignment.
In stage one of the survey participants were randomly assigned to share (through a typed
free-response) either a positive or negative personal experience they had within the last week.
These personal events were described as an event not related to school or work, which caused
either a positive or negative increase in mood (depending on which condition the participant was
assigned to). Sharing this personal experience will help to create a sense of a shared or un-shared
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
8
experience later in the study, as well as positively or negatively valence their mood. After typing
in their response, which is not used in analysis, PANAS was used to evaluate their mood.
Participants were given a list of words including upset, active and inspired and asked to indicate
how much this word reflected their current mood ranging from “Not at All” to “Extremely”.
In stage two, participants were told that they would read a positive or negative response
that a previous participant has agreed to share. Here, the participants were randomly assigned to
read either a positive or negative event that has been shared. It is important to note that both the
positive and negative responses were written by the primary investigator in order to ensure
consistency and present a distinctively positive or negative emotion from the speaker. Although
previous research typically incorporated direct interaction between participants and a
confederate, this study used pre-written responses within the survey in order to share an
experience with participants while still maintaining internal validity. Both stories included in the
survey were directed towards being relatable to undergraduates regardless of gender. Participants
assigned to reading the positive event were asked to read the following:
I've been working at the same job for the last couple of years, and this year we had a
whole bunch of new staff members come in. One of the new guys is really cute, sweet and
funny, and I really like him. For like the last two months we talked like all day everyday,
at work over text... all the time. He finally told me a few days ago that he liked me all that
time and was just too shy to ask me out! He finally asked me out, and I'm so excited, since
he's the first guy I've really liked in a while!
Participants assigned to reading the negative event were asked to read the following:
I went home to visit my boyfriend and family last weekend and decided to bring back
some stuff from my house. My car was packed and stuffed was everywhere. When I got
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
9
back to campus, I unloaded my car and thought I got everything, so I went and parked it
outside near the Fort. The next morning I was running late for class and needed to turn
in some last minute homework but couldn’t find my laptop, so I ran out to my car to see if
it was still in the backseat from when I had all my stuff packed in there. When I got to my
car, I found that someone had broken the window out and stolen my laptop from the
backseat.
Data was collected determining how long participants spent reading the responses before
being asked to complete PANAS for a second time. The first time participants were asked to
complete PANAS was used as a control for mood, while the second time was used as a
comparison for how participants were potentially affected by reading the experience of another.
The scores for each word in the PANAS were used to calculate overall mood scores, positive
affect scores (the positive component of mood) and negative affect scores (negative component
of mood) for the first and second PANAS as well as comparisons between the two measures.
These scores were the primary data source used in analyzing how participants’ moods varied
depending on their condition. Additionally, after acting as the “listener” participants were asked
if they were interested in reading a longer version of the personal experience shared with them.
Results
For analytical purposes, the primary dependent variables will be positive affect score
(PA), negative affect score (NA) and overall mood score (PA_minus_NA); additional variables
were used in analysis but many were based on these original scores. Each of these scores are
based on PANAS, which consists of two sets of words, one set which is largely positive words
and the second set which is largely negative words. When a person responds “Not at All”, the
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
10
score for the words is closer to 1, where a response of “Extremely” has a score closer to 5. A
completely neutral mood would average to 0, where an extremely positive would be 5 and
extremely negative a -5. The independent variables will be the positive/negative share and read
conditions, which are grouped into the following four conditions: Condition 1: share positive/
read positive (coded 1/1), Condition 2: share positive/ read negative (coded 1/0), Condition 3:
share negative/ read positive (coded 0/1) and Condition 4: share negative/ read negative (coded
0/0). Table 2 in the appendix shows the means for PA, NA and overall mood based on the
condition number.
To begin analysis, I tested the first hypothesis, which claimed that those in the two share
positive conditions (Conditions 1 and 2) will have higher mood scores on average regardless of
the read condition. In order to test this, an overall score for mood was calculated by taking the
positive affect score (PA) minus the negative affect score (NA). Univariate analysis was done on
the independent variable PA_minus_NA based on the four conditions. The mean score for
Condition 1 (share positive/read positive) was 1.4, Condition 2 (share positive/ read negative)
was .86, Condition 3 (share negative/ read positive) was 1.00, and finally, Condition 4 was .83.
Based on these initial means my hypothesis that Condition 2 will have one of the highest overall
mood scores can be rejected and will have no further analysis. The ANOVA test had a p-value of
nearly .000 compared to an alpha value of .05 (this same alpha value will be used in all future
analysis), meaning that at least one condition and variable was statistically significant. This
likely was Condition 1, which had a notably higher overall mood score. To confirm this, a
Planned Comparison test was used to evaluate which conditions had a statistically significant
different mean score for overall mood. In this test, each individual condition was compared to
the other conditions and a t-score was calculated to show how many standard deviations away
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
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from the mean overall mood score that particular condition was. Condition 1 had a t-value of
6.1080, meaning there was approximately a 0.000 probability that by chance the mean overall
mood score would be that far away from the mean response for the other three conditions. Based
on these results, part of the first hypothesis is confirmed stating that individuals who share a
positive event as a speaker and who read a positive event acting as a listener have the highest
overall mood.
To test my second hypothesis that Condition 4 (share negative/read negative) would have
the highest NA, the PANAS results were used. While there were negative affect scores for both
after sharing and after reading, here the primary focus was the NA score from after listening/
reading the shared event. Basic descriptive analysis showed that Condition 4 had the highest NA
score of 1.54, while the average NA score was approximately 1.46. To test this, a series of t-tests
were used where each condition was compared to Condition 4 to see if there was a statistically
significant difference. These tests concluded that there was no a statistically significant
difference in mean NA score for the individuals who were asked to share a negative event and
then read a negative event, meaning this hypothesis was rejected. However, I decided to also
look at the relationship between how long individuals who were in Condition 4 spent reading the
shared response and whether they were any more or less likely to respond that they wanted to
read more. Based on this Planned Comparison, those in Condition 1 were more likely to respond
that they were interested in reading more; this value proved statistically significant, while the
remaining three conditions had approximately equal means for the number of people who
responded that they would be interested in reading more. Similarly, analysis showed no
statistical difference in the amount of time the individuals spent reading either the positive or
negative passage that was shared.
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
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To test my final hypothesis that Conditions 1 and 3 will have the most extreme change in
either positive or negative affect, I calculated both negative and positive affect for all four
conditions in attempt to find a statistically significant difference in affect for those two
conditions. ANOVA tests focused on the difference of medians for the conditions, since medians
tend to be more outlier resistant and can be used in conjunction with ANOVA tests. Basic
descriptive analysis of the data was based on the four conditions; Condition 1 (share positive/
read positive) averaged .3 higher for the positive affect score, while Condition 4 (share negative/
read negative) had the highest negative affect, with a score that was .15 higher than average. I
then tested to see if there was statistical significance for Condition 1 having a higher positive
affect (PA) score on average. The Planned Differences analysis here concluded that Condition 1
having a mean PA of 2.75 versus the average PA for each of the other conditions (and the total
mean PA score of 2.48) had approximately 0.00 probability of occurring based on a t-value of
5.25. This means that it is nearly impossible that this large of a difference in the mean score for
Condition 1 versus the other conditions would occur by chance. This particular outcome was
expected since analysis from the first hypothesis showed Condition 1 had the highest overall
mood. Without even running further analysis, the hypothesis that Condition 3 would have the
highest NA score was rejected, since Condition 3 had a slightly below average score for negative
affect. The mean scores for negative affect is included in the Appendix as Table 2. These results
in particular emphasize that the positive share condition provoked a particularly large increase in
positive affect and overall mood, while the other conditions were not as affected.
Based on the previous hypotheses, the condition of the most statistical difference were
those individual who shared both a positive event and who read a positive event. Additional
analysis was done to understand how the details of Condition 1 may be applied in sharing daily
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
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events. First, the change in PA was calculated by taking the PA score from after reading the
passage and subtracting the PA from after the participant shared a personal event. The same was
done for NA. Planned Comparisons for the four conditions showed a few important statistical
differences between the conditions. First, Conditions 2 and 3 showed a statistically significant
change of NA between the first and second PANAS. In particular, Condition 2 was the only
condition with a positive mean for the change in NA. This meant that the individuals in
Condition 2, who shared a positive event and then read a negative event, were the only group to
have a higher average NA score on the second PANAS than the first. Individuals in Condition 3
had the greatest decrease in NA score between the first and second PANAS. This indicated that
people had the greatest change in NA when the event they shared was not of the same positive or
negative valence as the event they read about. Analysis for Change_in_PA between the first and
second PANAS showed a statistically significant difference in mean Change_in_PA between all
four conditions. Conditions 2 and 4 in particular had the largest decrease in PA between the two
measures, with mean PA score being .34 to .39 points respectively lower on average for the
second PANAS. This suggested that reading a negative event, regardless of shared event valence,
caused a significant decrease in positive affect. It is also worth noting that the mean change in
PA for all of the conditions was negative, which potentially suggests that positive affect was not
as long lasting as negative affect in this survey.
Discussion
First of all, this survey acts only as a preliminary measure to understand how sharing
events affects a listener in order to consider when to share events, what types of events to share
and how others may be affected emotionally. The analysis done here has affirmed previous
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
14
research, such as Heath’s congruence hypothesis, where participants preferred to share and read
about events that are consistent with the overall mood. Individuals who were in congruent or
shared conditions (Conditions 1 and 4) had the most extreme mood responses, suggesting they
were the most reactive and aroused during the survey. Participants in Condition 1 also expressed
the most interest in listening further after reading the shared passage. Although positive affect
dropped noticeably after completing the first and second PANAS for all conditions, Condition 1
participants, who had the highest positive affect (PA) after sharing and reading a positive event,
also had the smallest decrease in their positive affect score after the second measure. Condition 4
had the highest negative affect (NA) scores throughout the study, but had a moderate decrease in
negative affect scores in the end, suggesting this mood was also somewhat resilient to change.
Conditions 1 and 4 in particular emphasize that the individuals who were the most reactive
emotionally (highest PA or NA) typically did not experience as significant of a change in mood
scores by the end of the study. These two conditions had minimal to moderate changes in mood
(as shown in Table 2). This general consistency or endurance of mood suggests that people are
most affected by congruent situations.
Secondly, Condition 1 proved to be the most significant overall condition in regards to
positive affect score, negative affect score, overall mood and interest in reading/ “listening”
further. This would suggest that people are most likely to listen to positive events, although there
was no difference in likelihood to want to share an event based on condition or event valence.
The primary question was how people are affected by being a listener and Condition 1 shows
that positive events have a greater ability to influence mood in terms of personal everyday
events. This boost in positive affect though from everyday events does not seem to be enduring
over a long period of time, while the boost in negative affect (or a general decrease in mood)
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
15
seems to be more resilient or longer-lasting once it occurs. The difference in overall mood score
for Conditions 2 and 4 show the influence of reading a negative event. Participants in Condition
2, who first shared their own positive experience, were not as negatively affected as the
participants in Condition 4 who both shared and read a negative event. Similarly, participants in
Condition 1 were more influenced by reading a positive event than the individuals in Condition 3
who shared a negative event. These two results show that individual mood, whether someone
was in a positive or negative mood independent of others (participants shared a positive or
negative experience of their own which primed their mood), were noticeably important in
determining mood than the event valence that was shared.
Finally, analysis showed that although peoples’ personal experiences primed their overall
mood, they could be affected as a listener in a distinctively positive or negative way. For
example, Condition 2 presented the only positive increase in intensity for negative affect, while
also having the largest decrease in positive affect of the four conditions. At the first PANAS,
Condition 2 had the second highest PA score, where it then had the second lowest PA score after
the second PANAS. This represents that individuals not only prefer to listen to events that are
congruent to their current mood, but also are negatively affected by even an unknown
individual’s difficulties. On the other hand, Final_Mood_Change was calculated in order to show
which group had the largest change of overall mood through the course of the survey. Condition
3, where participants first shared a negative experience and then read the positive experience of
another individual, was the only condition that experienced a positive increase in mood, meaning
reading the positive experience of another individual improved their overall mood. Conditions
with incongruent event valences had the greatest influence on mood, where Condition 2 had the
greatest decrease in mood and Condition 3 had the greatest increase in mood.
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
16
This research is limited though because it used only a basic survey instead of face-to-face
interaction. Similarly, these relationships could be further examined with close friends, family or
romantic partners to understand how listening to an unknown individual may be different. It is
highly likely that interacting with someone in person where they can see physical reactions or
listening to someone close to you is a significantly different experience. Similarly, future surveys
could be extended to include more questions and experiences as well as an initial PANAS
measure to have a baseline mood estimate in order to better analyze how sharing events versus
listening to events may affect individuals.
Overall, the “Personal Experiences Survey” depicts some important relationships for
sharing information. First, people prefer congruency, or listening to an event that is of the same
positive or negative valence as their current mood. This congruency actually causes only a
moderate change in overall mood, which is likely the reason why people prefer it. Perhaps
people, especially in individualistic cultures, focus on themselves and their personal experience
first and most likely prefer to not be seriously emotionally affected by unknown individuals. If
someone is in a good mood, perhaps it is better to share positive experiences and events first, and
hold off for a while on sharing moderate negative events. Secondly, people are most noticeably
affected by incongruent situations and in these cases, the valence of the event being shared has
greater influence in determining the listener’s mood. So, if someone is having a bad day, sharing
a positive story may be just enough to brighten up their mood a little; however, be warned that
sharing bad news while someone is in a great mood probably is not the way to go.
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
17
References
Gable, S., Gonzaga, G., & Strachman, A. (2006). Will you be there for me when things
go right? Supportive responses to positive event disclosures. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 904–917.
Gable, S. L., Reis, H. T., Impett, E. A., & Asher, E. R. (2004). What do you do when
things go right? The intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits of sharing positive
events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(2), 228-245.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.2.228
Hackenbracht, J., Gasper, K. (2013). I'm all ears: The need to belong motivates listening
to emotional disclosure. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49.5, 915.
Retrieved from
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002210311300067X
Heath, C. (1996) Do People Prefer to Pass Along Good or Bad News? Valence and
Relevance of News as Predictors of Transmission Propensity. Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 68(2):79-94.
Reis, H. T., Smith, S. M., Carmichael, C. L., Caprariello, P. A., Tsai, F., Rodrigues, A., &
Maniaci, M. R. (2010). Are you happy for me? how sharing positive events with
others provides personal and interpersonal benefits. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 99(2), 311-329.
Emotional consequences of listening to others’ experiences
Appendix
Table 1: Experiment Design
Table 2: PA, NA, PA_minus_NA, Change_in_NA, Change_in_PA, Final_Mood_Change and
More Reading means based on Four Conditions
Note: Values closer to 1 for MoreReading indicate interest in reading/listening more
18